Great Indian Railway Journeys
BBC TWO, 8.00PM
One thing you can say about Michael Portillo, he’s not afraid to keep repeating a successful formula. In this new four-part excursion, he transplants every element of the previous train travel series he’s made in Britain, America and Europe – from the Bradshaw’s guide to his primary colour outfits and potted histories – to another of the world’s most expansive rail networks, in India. Which guarantees that if you loved those series, you’ll love this one just as much.
So, with a trusty copy of Bradshaw’s 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel in hand, he sets out to traverse the Punjab from Amritsar, the spiritual home of the Sikh religion, to the modern Le Corbusier-designed state capital of Chandigarh, before embarking on one of the most spectacular train rides of them all – the high-climbing narrow gauge line from Kolka to Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas. Along the way he opens a window on to the extraordinary variety of life and landscape in India and also offers a tangible sense of the country’s tangled history with Britain, and the tragedy that followed Partition in 1947. Armchair travel doesn’t get much comfier than this.
Gerard O’donovan